“When I got older,” M told me after our reading session last week, “people started moving away, and then they started dying. My friends, my neighbors, my family, my husband and brothers. It felt like pieces of me were just getting cut away, and sometimes it feels like there is just a hollow shell. left me. I’m so tired of missing people…”

Many people are lonely as they age. The social and community contacts that sustain us are often diminished, sometimes completely severed. And there are fewer and fewer opportunities to make friends.

I notice that people in the Mansion care for one another and look one for one another, and empathize with each other. Yet if you ask them, they will often say they don’t really want to make friends any more, not in the old way. It’s just another thing to miss.

The people there also miss the tasks that brought them to other people – raising kids, working, taking care of shopping, houses and cards. Nobody talks much about missing human contact, but almost everyone feels it. And they wanted to talk about it last week at the Mansion.

“There is no substitute for a husband or wife, or caring for a child, having a friend of 30 years. I’ll ever have that again, and what can I say?” It hurts.

“You don’t have any way to mask the loneliness,” said W. Most of what you had is just gone.”

My own view is that much of this loneliness could be eased or modified if the extreme elderly were not so isolated in nursing homes, assisted care facilities or even in their own homes. We tend to look away from the elderly, we hide them away and often avoid them. They rarely get the chance to mix with the people who might help them feel more connected to the world.

The residents love to see dogs and cats, kids and younger adults, they love their doctors and aides. But very few people from the outside world come to the Mansion.

“It’s safe in here,” said A, “I don’t want to be anywhere else, but it’s  not the real world.”

After my reading hour every week (I read again there tomorrow afternoon at 1 p.m.) I opened a discussion about aging.  It was very real and very honest. The residents very much wanted to talk about it.

We’ve talked about struggling for words, not been seen, feeling invisible. Last week we also talked about loneliness, a subject I will bring up again tomorrow. It’s important, and I saw they wanted to talk about it.

I’ve chosen a nice mix to read tomorrow. A new book called God, I Needed A Puppy, by John Gray; The Wonky Donky by Craig Smith (a favorite);  Willbee the Bumblebee, also by Craig Smith and a new choice for me, Where The Sidewalk Ends, poems and drawings by Shel Silverstein.

Hug O’ War

“I will not play at tug o’ war.

I’d rather play at hug o’ war.

Where everyone hugs,

Instead of tugs,

Where everyone giggles

And rolls on the rug,

Where everyone kisses,

And everyone grins,

And everyone cuddles,

And everyone wins.”

• Shel Silverstein

I like the mix. I think they will love Silverstein’s poems. If we have time, we’ll also read about Maud, the 88-year-old murderer from Sweden.

I hope I can touch the loneliness.